Inlaws and Outlaws
by Ember Nickel
Summary: Challenge response: Perhaps things could have played out differently. Some discussion of underage sexual content, no explicit material.


_Author's note: Written for Paris in December's "Marry, Shag, Kill" response. I chose Regulus, who would need to marry, shag, and kill three given characters in some order, the death with...well, you'll see._

"The point," Severus _tsk_s, "of going to the dungeons was not that you would fall asleep."

"You might have woken me up," Regulus says coolly.

But he wouldn't have, Regulus knows. Had Severus been any older, any more likely to see Regulus as just a toy at his disposal, he'd have poked him until he could have his way. But he isn't, he's not that much more mature, not getting anything more out of the dungeon nights than Regulus is. So he stays awake, or sleeps, as the mood strikes.

"What time is it, anyway? I've got Quidditch practice."

"For once in your life, Black, it wouldn't kill you to think farther in advance than the next Quidditch match."

"Think ahead to what? Am I going to be looking for Potions ingredients for you, thirty years from now?"

"Perhaps." Severus isn't going to waste a smile on him now that it's morning. "As incompetent as your spellwork can be, you might have a...place in things that are to come."

"Again with your bloody gang of sixth-years. Literally," Regulus muses. "I'm the heir of the house of Black, you know. I think it's I who should be deigning to invite you to such pureblood schemes, not the other way around."

"Shut _up_," Severus commands, and his fingernails are prickling with that ravenous desire.

"Fine by me," he shrugs. "Besides, what do you want me around for? You won't be the little Potions prodigy anymore."

"Your potionmaking is still inept, Black. But breathe one word about us, and I will—"

"Hex me six ways from Tuesday, I've heard. Maybe you ought to show me some of these spells of yours."

Severus raises one eyebrow, and pulls out a book from below the makeshift mattress.

"You bring your textbook down _here_? Merlin's jockstrap, no wonder you're so poor at—"

"If you stayed awake we wouldn't have this problem," says Severus, flipping it open. He's scribbled "Sectumsempra—for enemies" in the margins. "I'd hate for you to become an enemy of mine."

"Relax," says Regulus. "I have better things to do with my time than brag about my half-blood conquests."

"Do you _enjoy_ winding me up, Black?"

"I don't do it on purpose. But you're more..." "Cute," he suspects, is not the right word. "interesting when you're angry."

"Next time, try and stay awake to appreciate this interest."

Regulus shrugs. "I'll see what I can do."

* * *

><p>"Black."<p>

Regulus is sitting on the grounds, idly watching Severus, who is deep in conversation with Avery and them. But the voice is coming from the other direction.

He whirls his head around, does a double-take, and tries to keep his voice cool. "Black."

"Oh, don't flatter me, I'm not the heir or anything."

Sirius has made an effort to look even more cool, more flippant, than usual, which is saying something.

"Well, if we're not on a first-name basis, what do you want me to call you?"

"Look," he says, "cut the bull. Are you snogging Evans?"

He has to think a moment. "Who? Lily? Do you fancy her?"

"No."

"Your mate does, doesn't he? Potter?"

_It shouldn't be like this_, Sirius thinks. _I shouldn't think of James as more of a brother than Regulus is, I shouldn't be..._

"Never mind him, I'm talking about Evans. Because if you think it'd be cool just to leave Mum and Dad, get your name blasted off the tree, it's not, it's bloody painful is what it is."

"Thanks for your advice. Might've tried saying something helpful to me once in the last six years."

"And you ought to have considered where your loyalties lie. Look, I'm not that close to Evans, but if you mess with her because she's Muggleborn my friends and I will make you pay."

"Your friends and you? You're just as bad as Snape and the seventh years."

Sirius is about to burst in frustration, but one word catches his ear. "Just as _bad _as Snape and them? Whose side are you on?"

"If I was really snogging Evans you don't think I'd go around hating Muggle-borns, do you?"

"You're a Slytherin, Reg'." Progress. "Merlin knows I don't expect you to go around torturing first-years for fun, but how should I know you won't turn on her if things go wrong?"

"What is it with you and Evans, Sirius?"

"Nothing. Except that Snape's already messed with her and I don't need more whimpering from the next bloody dorm over."

"Like you get any sleep anyway. You're always sneaking out at night."

"How do you—" Sirius begins and then cuts off. "Just be careful."

"I will. And if you care so much about what Evans thinks, why don't you ask _her _her opinion?"

* * *

><p>Sirius lasts a week before his curiosity gets the better of him.<p>

"Oi, Evans. Are you snogging my brother?"

Evans laughs. "You worried about him? I'm sorry to break this to you, but he seems quite...experienced in the snogging department."

Sirius runs through the obvious candidates—none seem too plausible. "So you are, then?"

"He can take care of himself."

"I'm not worried about him. You're a little thick, if you're getting involved with a pureblood brat."

"Regulus is different. Just because he's quiet doesn't mean he agrees with everything the other Slytherins are saying."

"Merlin, Lily, this is not the time to be a lovesick fool."

"For you it isn't. For Regulus, it might have to be."

* * *

><p>"Good match."<p>

Severus has no idea what qualifies as a good Quidditch match, does he? It was a rainy affair, the Chasers were inept, and only Lucinda's beating held off the Ravenclaw Seeker long enough for him to come up with the Snitch. "Thanks."

"I take it we won?"

"You are hopeless. What do you come out for?"

"You look cute in the rain."

"Thanks. Don't you have N. E. W. T.s to study for or something?"

"I'll be fine," Severus scowls. "_Muffliato._"

"What's that one do?"

"Stop other people from hearing us," Severus says, and Regulus gulps. "Who's the other man?"

"The other what?"

"Who you're shagging? I'm not jealous, I've been...busy, but I want to know if you're tied up with someone that'll make things complicated."

He supposes it had been obvious, upon consideration; Lily doesn't go for anything much more than snogging, but the way she makes him feel even when it's just him alone thinking about her fills him up somehow and he hasn't thought of Severus in weeks. "Who says I'm shagging another man?"

Severus pauses to take this in, then laughs. "Merlin, Reg', you're too quiet to impress any woman!"

"There are a lot of women out there," he says, shifty suddenly because Lily does have some sort of history with Snape, doesn't she?

"Unless it was someone huge like that Hufflepuff Beater," Severus suggests, but Regulus' grimace betrays him. Severus pauses, considering, then looks towards Regulus' face. "Legili—"

"Oy, Lucinda!" Regulus impulsively calls, whirling away. "Brilliant job today."

* * *

><p>His seventh year crawls by. There are Astronomy classes and Quidditch games, too few, and too few also of the letters from outside.<p>

Sirius, he can tell, still does not really trust him, but he grudgingly is willing to believe Lily up to a point. Neither of them will tell him where they are.

But Lily comes to Hogsmeade every once in a while, when he's there. They walk through Honeydukes a lot—her idea, not his, he does not want to look like a child—and it is one warm April day when he is picking out some chocolate frogs for her when a bright, silver cat pounces into the room.

"We need your Healing Potions right away," it says, and vanishes.

"What was that?" he gapes.

"Did you—what did it do?"

"It said something, it said something about you, someone needs a healing potion or something?"

Lily smiles. "I, I'm very sorry, I have to go. But I'll write you soon."

"I love you," he calls, and she seems to hear it before Disapparating.

A few days later, she does.

_Dear Regulus,_

_Sorry for leaving you. One of my friends got hurt in a duel and I needed to help. Nobody you know._

_The cat is McGonagall's Patronus. I'm impressed you could hear it—if you were a dark wizard you shouldn't have been able to. Well, I'm not impressed but a few of the others are._

_Stay safe._

_Love,_

_Lily_

He wonders whether Sirius is one of the others.

* * *

><p>"I do love you," she says, "but you're so young."<p>

"There's a war on. We have an excuse."

She laughs. "And are you sure you'd want to get dragged into that, with me being...involved?"

"_Yes_," he says again. "But if you want to wait, I'll wait."

She looks at him and he can't quite read her face. "You would, wouldn't you."

He doesn't know what to say.

"All right. Maybe August."

"August what?"

"We'll get married in."

* * *

><p>"Course I'll show up," says Sirius. "Got to have at least one guest, don't you?"<p>

"Well, Mum and Dad...no, not them." Regulus still has no aspersions to rebellion, no need to let them know he's a blood traitor. Bringing Lily to live at 12 Grimmauld Place would be a bit of a giveaway, granted, but no use risking more trouble than is needed. "Lily's mum and dad."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course! She's run this by them, they're fine with it."

"I'm not asking about their approval, I'm asking about their safety. If you're getting one of those Ministry officials...you don't know whose side anyone is on, there are some really reactionary types, and...I don't think it's a good idea."

"For me to meet my future in-laws? C'mon, Sirius, everyone knows Lily's Muggleborn, it's not going to put her in any more danger."

Sirius shrugs. "Your risk, not mine."

"You're the risk-taker! Merlin's beard, did joining your little guerrilla club take the fight out of you?"

"No. But it's taken me seventeen years to trust _you_, not my fault I can't be sure of anyone I don't know."

Regulus shakes his head. "Merlin's beard. My crazy brother is afraid for me to invite my wife's parents to my wedding. Where do I sign up?"

"Sign up to what?"

"Your Order or whatever. I can't stick around if it's going to keep being like this."

"You're a bloody idiot, Reg," says Sirius, but he seems pleased.

* * *

><p>He learned duelling spells from Sirius, Charms from Lily, and at the time he felt confident. It was like Hogwarts again, he was the kid who picked it all up fast, and Sirius' proud grins when he masters a new spell make him happier than they probably should. There are years to catch up on, but in the silences of the rented house, he thinks he knows it all.<p>

Until the first skirmish. There are people all around him. He should be able to keep track, masks, and faces, keep track, see. Should fight. Should cast a spell. Someone is bleeding. Someone, face. One of the Order lot. One of their lot. Lily is fighting, she is doing some advanced curse thing.

He needs to help. Steps over. Has to cast. Mouth dry. What? Had practiced.

Panicking, he stumbles over a spell he doesn't quite know how to pronounce. "S-sectumsempra."

Someone, duelling. Mask. Good. Falling off. What he meant to hit. His chest, staggers backwards, gapes. Stiffens. Falls.

Lily whirling. Turns to face another. Someone staring, someone mad. Sirius.

There are still more of them. He casts something else.

And, that night, when she is holding him and there feels like far more than a year between them, he speaks for the first time in hours, "Snape knows."

"What?" she says kindly, and an exhausted part of his mind says something about her having known Snape once but he is not thinking straight enough to follow it up.

"Spell. I cast on the Death Eater. Evans? It's...one of Snape's. He knows that it's me, now."

"It's all right," she says, stroking his hair. "It doesn't matter whether they know your name or not. We'll keep fighting."

But she does not understand. Snape knows, and in a few days his family will know too, he was nothing more than a blood traitor at the end of it all. Perhaps things could have played out differently, perhaps he might have lived and been respected. Played Quidditch. Stayed with Snape. Even just remembered his spells and kept living a lie.

Or maybe, on the seventeenth of September, it might have been _1979_ woven underneath his name on the Black family tree, rather than him being burnt out of it.


End file.
